Innovating problems: why DJ Hero flopped

DJ Hero enjoyed strong buzz, positive reviews, and came attached with some of …

The NPD Group's sales information for October has been released, and DJ Hero is nowhere to be found on the top ten list. According to Gamespot, the game sold 122,300 copies. That may not sound like a flop, but keep in mind that this number is spread across four platforms. The sales breakdown is depressing: it sold best on the 360, with 62,000 units moved. The worst? 3,300 units on the PlayStation 2.

What happened? Activision Blizzard spent a mint promoting the game, including hiring big-name producers and DJs to hype the release, as well as bringing in Jay-Z and Eminem to perform at a star-studded concert at E3. The game had strong early buzz, and it could still be a slow-burning hit. Our guess, though, is that you're looking at an expensive flop of game. Why did a title with so much going for it miss the mark in sales so spectacularly? We have a few theories.

This isn't a party game

While a small number of songs can be played with a second player on guitar, the overwhelming majority of the songs are single player. The turntable is the only instrument used in this kind of music, meaning a game based on DJ culture is simply not compatible with having multiple people playing at the same time. Even the competitive mode feels tacked on and shallow.

A DJ is one man behind a set of turntables and a mixer. That feeling is conveyed very well in the game, but when playing with friends, the best way to enjoy the game is to take turns playing. Rhythm games work best with crowds, and DJ Hero is a solitary experience. That's not a knock against it; playing the game is great fun. It's just hard to share with others, compared to the more popular Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises.

It's expensive

The Renegade Edition of the game was $200. The standard edition, $120. That's a tough sell in a market where price point is so important. For $80 more you can get yourself a Wii or an Xbox 360 Arcade model. Right now at GameStop you can spend $20 less and pick up a game, a guitar, a microphone, and drums with the $99 Rock Band 2 Special Edition. The music is more accessible, you can pay with friends, and you get more hardware for less money.

The turntable included with the $120 DJ Hero release is a high quality accessory; you won't feel ripped off if you buy the game. The trouble is that at that price, with only one accessory, not many people are going to be willing to find that out.

You don't know any of these songs

DJ Hero comes with a numbing number of great, big-name songs by impressive artists. The problem is the music you actually play in the game consists of mash-ups of two songs per track, and the DJs and producers who created the music were free to chop, change, and cut up the songs to create something new. The tracks are great, but it's not what you're used to, and your favorite song may only be used as a hook or a bass beat buried deep in the original track the game uses.

With other rhythm games, you know the songs you're playing. You know when a big solo is coming, and the hook that you love listening to is always going to be there. DJ Hero offers tracks that bump and pulse and change... that's good for the club, but it can create distance between the songs and players used to something a little more traditional.

If you're already comfortable with this style of music, you're going to love what the game offers. If you're not, you may find the use of the songs you know and love strange. The game's credibility may actually hurt it; including artists like Afrika Bambaataa may excite hip-hop fans, but that's not a name that's going to energize every gamer who sees it on the back of the box in a game store.

You probably don't know how a turntable works

People intuitively know how to use a guitar. It's a stringed instrument, it's accessible, people know how to hold it. Drums are the same way. A turntable? Even fans of the music may not have a good idea of what's being done to create those sounds.

Playing DJ Hero will require most players to go through the tutorials to learn what the buttons do, what a fader is, and how to interact with the game. There is a ton of stuff to keep track of as well: the buttons, the scratches, the cross-fader with three positions, the volume knob. You have to learn different ways to move your hands, and the quick flicks of the cross fade at the higher difficulty levels require both fast movement and precision. It's not an easy game to learn to play.

When people watch others play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, they want to try. Even playing on easy mode with DJ Hero requires you to learn new skills; when people watch others play, they seem to get intimidated instead of drawn in.

Is there hope?

Honestly, it's going to be hard to overcome these challenges. There is already a low margin on plastic instruments, so it's going to be hard to drop the price on the game and still make a profit. DJ culture is unlikely to explode in the next few months to give the game a sales boost. People are increasingly drawn into more social experiences, and this is a rare beast: a rhythm game best played alone.

Which is a shame: the game is wonderful. The music sounds great, the gameplay is addictive once you get the hang of things, and Activision has proven that they can create a high-quality rhythm game without a roadmap being given to them by Harmonix. It's worth your time and money. Will it get them?

Somehow, I doubt it. The things that make the game so good work against it in the current marketplace. It's great for gamers that DJ Hero exists, but the sales may send a message that keeps this sort of brave appeal to the hardcore a rare thing.

155 Reader Comments

I'm surprised market saturation isn't in here as a reason DJ Hero is struggling. I understand it's a different genre of music. But at the end of the day it's still a rhythm game, in a market drowning in annual releases from two franchises.

Originally posted by Lbaxter:I'm surprised market saturation isn't in here as a reason DJ Hero is struggling. I understand it's a different genre of music. But at the end of the day it's still a rhythm game, in a market drowning in annual releases from two franchises.

Yeah, agreed. How many of these types of games can actuallye xist given their price?

To the game, I agree with that entire paragraph. Spinning in a club (or even in your own living room) is difficult, and takes a lot of coordination, but it's not eye hand coordination, it's hand EAR coordination. That's an entirely different part of the brain to get used to using, and not everyone can actually do that.

It looks great, and I loved the DJ games on the PS2, niche though those were. I just can't justify buying it when there are umpteen billion other games out there that are awesome right now, for a lot less money.

The fact that this kind of music is really unappealing to most people probably doesn't help. I know the genre has its afficiondos, but in general nobody spends their free time listening to that kind of stuff. Look at the iTunes top sellers. Rock, country, and pop dominates the list. The people who sit back and really enjoy music enjoy _music_ and not random mashups of sounds that have no musical qualities at all besides a repetitive beat.

The vast majority people who play games like Rock Band absolutely despise the kind of music that DJ Hero is all about. It is possibly one of the most unappealing games out there to many people. Many parents don't want their kids to have it because parents want to hear their kid playing Journey or The Who, not rap or hip-hop or mash-ups. Rock Band and Guitar Hero simply have a far, far wider appeal than DJ Hero ever could, especially with the addition of country music titles to their DLC.

Everyone dreams of being rock stars. Nobody dreams of being a DJ. Even the people who do actually enjoy this kind of music enjoy it because they think it's good dance music. They don't sit around and listen to it on their iPods. They don't memorize the songs. They don't care about the songs. They just want the beat. This is the kind of music that goes in something like DDR, because the fun part of this kind of music is dancing to it, not playing it.

So you've got a genre of music that a large number of people believe shouldn't be allowed to exist, that doesn't have the glamour of being a rock star associated with it, which appeals to a demographic not known for being big video game players, and which is better suited to a different style of game.

Originally posted by elanthis:The fact that this kind of music is really unappealing to most people probably doesn't help. I know the genre has its afficiondos, but in general nobody spends their free time listening to that kind of stuff. Look at the iTunes top sellers. Rock, country, and pop dominates the list. The people who sit back and really enjoy music enjoy _music_ and not random mashups of sounds that have no musical qualities at all besides a repetitive beat.

The vast majority people who play games like Rock Band absolutely despise the kind of music that DJ Hero is all about. It is possibly one of the most unappealing games out there to many people. Many parents don't want their kids to have it because parents want to hear their kid playing Journey or The Who, not rap or hip-hop or mash-ups. Rock Band and Guitar Hero simply have a far, far wider appeal than DJ Hero ever could, especially with the addition of country music titles to their DLC.

Everyone dreams of being rock stars. Nobody dreams of being a DJ. Even the people who do actually enjoy this kind of music enjoy it because they think it's good dance music. They don't sit around and listen to it on their iPods. They don't memorize the songs. They don't care about the songs. They just want the beat. This is the kind of music that goes in something like DDR, because the fun part of this kind of music is dancing to it, not playing it.

So you've got a genre of music that a large number of people believe shouldn't be allowed to exist, that doesn't have the glamour of being a rock star associated with it, which appeals to a demographic not known for being big video game players, and which is better suited to a different style of game.

Sales failure is not all that surprising here.

Very good points. How many DJs can the average person name? Rock/pop stars?

Originally posted by lost_packet:How do people know it is bad without playing it? I don't see tons of forum posts that it sucks, stay away.

They are drowned out by all the excitement that finally this game has arrived and is the best game ever. Or, not much of either which apparently doesn't help sales either.

The only excitement appears to be within the publishers marketing team. If you are willing to pay $120-$200 plus taxes and possibly shipping, you probably already know you want it. Accidental sales are probably minimal.

So, the product probably does exactly what you would expect. The problem is not many people want it, probably for all the great reasons listed above. It is niche.

When I hear DJ Hero I wonder when Mitzie and Candy are finally coming on to the stage. Hopefully together.

Originally posted by elanthis:Everyone dreams of being rock stars. Nobody dreams of being a DJ. Even the people who do actually enjoy this kind of music enjoy it because they think it's good dance music. They don't sit around and listen to it on their iPods. They don't memorize the songs. They don't care about the songs. They just want the beat. This is the kind of music that goes in something like DDR, because the fun part of this kind of music is dancing to it, not playing it.

None of these things are true.

quote:

Originally posted by elanthis:random mashups of sounds that have no musical qualities at all besides a repetitive beat.

This manages to be both untrue and retarded. I mean, it's perfectly OK to just not like a genre of music. You don't have to prove to anybody (not that you could) why it's not 'musical.'

Originally posted by elanthis:The fact that this kind of music is really unappealing to most people probably doesn't help. I know the genre has its afficiondos, but in general nobody spends their free time listening to that kind of stuff. Look at the iTunes top sellers. Rock, country, and pop dominates the list. The people who sit back and really enjoy music enjoy _music_ and not random mashups of sounds that have no musical qualities at all besides a repetitive beat.

The vast majority people who play games like Rock Band absolutely despise the kind of music that DJ Hero is all about. It is possibly one of the most unappealing games out there to many people. Many parents don't want their kids to have it because parents want to hear their kid playing Journey or The Who, not rap or hip-hop or mash-ups. Rock Band and Guitar Hero simply have a far, far wider appeal than DJ Hero ever could, especially with the addition of country music titles to their DLC.

Everyone dreams of being rock stars. Nobody dreams of being a DJ. Even the people who do actually enjoy this kind of music enjoy it because they think it's good dance music. They don't sit around and listen to it on their iPods. They don't memorize the songs. They don't care about the songs. They just want the beat. This is the kind of music that goes in something like DDR, because the fun part of this kind of music is dancing to it, not playing it.

So you've got a genre of music that a large number of people believe shouldn't be allowed to exist, that doesn't have the glamour of being a rock star associated with it, which appeals to a demographic not known for being big video game players, and which is better suited to a different style of game.

Sales failure is not all that surprising here.

Jesus, this is nonsense. Lots and lots and lots of club kids dream of being DJ's. I'd even say that in some circles it is a lot more common than dreaming about becoming a professional musician. You might definitely have the potential for a "slow-burning hit" there.

And as for the notion that people who listen to this kind of music only dance to it, not listen, well that's just prejudice. What do they "listen" to, you mean? Rock or country music? And "Random mashups of sounds that have no musical qualities at all besides a repetitive beat" - sounds more like somtehing my parents' or grandparents' friends would say... ;-)

As for me, music happens to be my greatest hobby, both record collecting and practicing. And rap, beats, mashups are some of the things I listen most to. Sure, mainstream rock and pop is probably always going to have a bigger audience, and DJ Hero might be a niche music game. But so what? This game definitely has slow-burning hit potential, even if it never comes close to the more mainstream (and great) Rock band/guitar hero games.

Why did a title with so much going for it miss the mark in sales so spectacularly?

Polishing a turd doesn't make it any less of a turd? I mean I cannot stand rhythm games in General (I really hate QuickTimeEvents and making a whole game out of it ... ) but with Guitar hero at least you make something cool. You can be a Rockstar.

Making a DJ game is like making a game about the American Western and playing as a cook. Why not be a Cowboy or Indian ...

...i'll posit that there's not much market for people pretending to be people pretending to be musicians - it's too meta, the same reason why sports videogames will never catch on as a sport themselves...

You shouldn't be surprised. At $120 it's expensive. They probably would have been better off to sell a sub-par piece of hardware with a much lower priced version. As long as it worked well, even if the quality wasn't really there, the game could hve taken off and people could upgrade to better hardware. At $120, who's going to take the chance?

It doesn't get any better when you consider that they released a more expensive version as well, implying to some that the lower priced one was sub-par in quality; in spite of reviews implying the only real difference was the color. (which in itself is a pretty lousy tactic for a specialized controller you can only use in a single game).

...i don't doubt that it's a fun game, and having done a fair bit of production, mastering, and DJ work myself i don't deny that it can be an immensely satisfying and musical genre - but the simple fact that it's such an accessible pastime, that people can buy equipment to do *real* DJ work for the same price as this game, dooms it to a niche status amongst rhythm game enthusiasts alone (don't make the mistake that most guitar hero fans are *rhythm game* fans; they're fans of playing out the fantasy of being a rock star)...

...most people buy games for an accessible experience they can't duplicate in real life, and so for the same reason that rockstar's doubtlessly fantastic pingpong game failed, so too will DJ hero...

The issues mentioned in the article are ones that would not effect sales. They might count if the reviews were poor, but generally speaking they were not. If someone was in the market for a rhythm game this fall, DK hero would have been a strong contender.

In Guitar Hero or Rock Band you're pretending to be somebody with genuine talent who worked hard for years to hone the skills to apply that talent. In DJ Hero you're pretending to be a pretender, a no-talent club host who for bizarre reasons has become treated as a sort of actual musician in recent years. Deep down, even aficionados of the form know this is nonsense. This requires no more talent than the highly automated electronic organs that were once a cliche demo in malls. Thanks to some cheap logic hardware and a bunch of stored beat sequences, they could make anyone appear to be a skilled keyboard player. The console music games provide the same illusion for a lot less money.

But simulating being someone who is already pretending to talent? What is the point, at any price?

A long time I predicted the Japanese passion for simulating aspects of ordinary life, as in arcade machines that simulate walking a dog, that they would eventually get around to producing a game that simulated masturbation without any actual sexual sensations being produced. DJ Hero is seeking to do the same for the club crawler crowd who has no concept of what it is to actually produce music from an instrument with no computers involved.

but the simple fact that it's such an accessible pastime, that people can buy equipment to do *real* DJ work for the same price as this game

There's a mixer and turntable available for $120? Link, please.

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They might count if the reviews were poor, but generally speaking they were not.

Reviews and sales have but a nodding acquaintance with each other.

quote:

In DJ Hero you're pretending to be a pretender, a no-talent club host who for bizarre reasons has become treated as a sort of actual musician in recent years. Deep down, even aficionados of the form know this is nonsense.

The game is also fighting this sort of ignorance; people who have no understanding of what they're talking about, mixed with no actual experience with this kind of music.

It's an expensive game and really I'm kind of burnt out on rhythm games. Perhaps if they included a USB stick or CD with mp3s of all the songs I would be more likely to pick it up. I love listening to music like this (though contrary to elanthis I don't enjoy dancing) and being able to dump them on my iphone and listen to them on the way to work would be great. Now I'm off to see if anyone has ripped all the tracks off the game.

I'm surprised anybody "expected" this game to fly off the shelves. The original guitar hero certainly didn't. It took a long time for people to be exposed to plastic guitars before they started buying the game in droves. I don't think we will ever see that type of sales number from DJ Hero, but as word of mouth spreads and more and more people bite the hook, you may see something that we all yearn for and most never see...a great game that isn't sequel-raped into over-saturation. So what if DJ Hero is the only game in town for a few years (unless Scratch ever actually makes it to the store), and DJ Hero 2 never sees the light of day? If there is enough support, maybe you'll see a good catalog of DLC for this and it will remain where it should, a rare gem that endures for the rest of the generation.

I trust the review, and that the game is fun, but I am one of the people that this game doesn't really appeal to. I disagree with the statement in the concluding paragraph "The things that make the game so good work against it in the current marketplace." I don't think the problem is the game (if it is as good as you say) or the marketplace, the problem is the developers/producers who only want to release "goldmine" games. I am sure that a studio can be profitable selling a good game at a volume that this one is being sold at. I think the problem is the goldmine mindset with the developers/producers. I think a 120,000 units is pretty good for niche product and I hope it increases the diversity of games being released.

As far as appeal goes, GH has mass appeal because so many people, even beginning in grade school, play air guitar along to songs they like. Playing turntables, or keyboards, just doesn't have quite the same "performance" draw for me and I guess most people. Keyboard hero? probably ain't gonna happen.

Originally posted by Ben Kuchera:Reviews and sales have but a nodding acquaintance with each other.

I swear, it's like some people have never heard of Michael Bay :P

Definitely seems to come down to accessibility more than anything else, I have a few friends who DJ and I couldn't tell you the first thing about how this works. I'm thinking about picking it up for the fun of it, but I'm the market of people who already know a little about DJing, unlike a lot of people here (guys, my job involves going to work, hammering away at a computer and spitting out some pretty reports. The reports are generally as simple as possible, does that mean I'm not really doing anything? Wish I didn't waste all those years studying now. Anytime I hear someone say "pfft, that's easy, I could do that", they're wrong 99% of the time, unless it's playing guitar hero).

Originally posted by elanthis:Everyone dreams of being rock stars. Nobody dreams of being a DJ.

Although I think he is massively mistaken throughout the rest of his post, this is the part he got right. I've said this in a few other threads leading up to the release at well. (With the 'everyone' and 'nobody' not intending to be absolutes, just relative)

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Originally posted by thecosimist:Jesus, this is nonsense. Lots and lots and lots of club kids dream of being DJ's. I'd even say that in some circles it is a lot more common than dreaming about becoming a professional musician.

I've bolded the key parts of that quote. Lots and lots of everyone else dreams of being a rockstar, or at least breaks out the air guitar and follows a riff on the rare occasion. Count the number of people you have seen pull out an air-turntable (doesn't have quite the same ring to it).

Owl City is technically a DJ, because his computer makes all the rhythms and effects, except the vocals. But I agree, they have a problem here, because when you mix and chop something up, you usually can't tell what song it originally was, because only a certain part of it could be background music. Norwegian Recycling does this all the time in his music, but of course, since mash-ups are generally frowned upon by the music industry, this is why people don't really think DJs are that popular. In circles that have known about their music, they are a hit. But for the rest of the population, they are unfortunately not... not because they don't produce great music, but simply because they aren't well-known.

Originally posted by elanthis:Even the people who do actually enjoy this kind of music enjoy it because they think it's good dance music. They don't sit around and listen to it on their iPods.

You really need to speak for yourself. I'm just as likely to queue up something by DJ Shadow or Cannibal Ox as I am a piece by Conlon Nancarrow or Glenn Branca. Artists such as Jay-Z, Afrika Bambaataa, M.I.A. and Common are Pitchfork-approved for God's sake. How much more hipster/rock snob appeal do they need?

Your point about the music not being popular (even your reference to iTunes is a fucking crock and refutes your point) certainly isn't supported by any online sales data I'm finding.

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...which appeals to a demographic not known for being big video game players

Who the fuck is this code for, black males? You're just full of shit. Black males are a pretty huge demographic when it comes to video game sales. They spend more of their income on video games than white males do.

I know you're going to deny you were talking about black males. So to prove it, you simply need to post data that show that hip-hop/dance music fans don't spend as large a portion of their disposable incomes on video games as rock/country/general pop fans do. This certainly shouldn't be too hard since you were looking at actual numbers from somewhere besides your colon, right?

If you don't like the music and most of the people you know don't either, that's one thing. But you can't just make up lies and act as if your supposition were authoritative based on that. There's really a reason why people keep repeating the plural of anecdote is not data.

I tried the game out at my local best buy after seeing all of Ben's glowing praise. I just didn't have any fun playing it. I tried on medium, and picked it up quickly enough that I only missed a few notes/switches (other than the damn scratch not registering when I was using the button closest to the center of rotation.) I ran into another Arsian there who was also interested in the game based on Ben's reviews, and he also didn't find it fun. So while I agree with the points made in the article, I'm a fan of this type of music and of the DJ culture, as well as a long-time lover of music games, and I'm not buying it because I didn't find it fun.

Originally posted by elanthis:The fact that this kind of music is really unappealing to most people probably doesn't help. I know the genre has its afficiondos, but in general nobody spends their free time listening to that kind of stuff. Look at the iTunes top sellers. Rock, country, and pop dominates the list. The people who sit back and really enjoy music enjoy _music_ and not random mashups of sounds that have no musical qualities at all besides a repetitive beat.

The vast majority people who play games like Rock Band absolutely despise the kind of music that DJ Hero is all about. It is possibly one of the most unappealing games out there to many people. Many parents don't want their kids to have it because parents want to hear their kid playing Journey or The Who, not rap or hip-hop or mash-ups. Rock Band and Guitar Hero simply have a far, far wider appeal than DJ Hero ever could, especially with the addition of country music titles to their DLC.

Everyone dreams of being rock stars. Nobody dreams of being a DJ. Even the people who do actually enjoy this kind of music enjoy it because they think it's good dance music. They don't sit around and listen to it on their iPods. They don't memorize the songs. They don't care about the songs. They just want the beat. This is the kind of music that goes in something like DDR, because the fun part of this kind of music is dancing to it, not playing it.

So you've got a genre of music that a large number of people believe shouldn't be allowed to exist, that doesn't have the glamour of being a rock star associated with it, which appeals to a demographic not known for being big video game players, and which is better suited to a different style of game.

Sales failure is not all that surprising here.

Can't say I agree with much of this. I would never purchase this game, but know people who might because it interests them. As for the music, I grew up on Rock, but I also love the sound of club music. Yes, I do just listen to it on my mp3 player, at home, or in my car. Now I am talking more about trance music, but it's the same concept really, just done differently.

I think the main problem with this is it's a product focusing too narrow on it's potential audience. I agree that a guitar is much more straight forward to use, atleast in a game.

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itemscool2002 makes some trenchant points here. I think it would be interesting to expand on them in relation to the nature of DJing from a music theory standpoint as well as its relationship to the cultural zeitgeist.

It can't have helped that Activision released this in the thick of the Fall Game Glut. This kind of niche game would have best been served by a Summer release (clubbing season!) and left on a slow burn for a year.

Videogame companies need to learn that hit franchises are rarely built with a single game, especially niche titles like a game based on DJ work. Next thing you know, they'll make a game based on... oh, I dunno... firefighting, and expect it to be a monster hit. Sure, everyone thinks it would be cool to be a firefighter, but few people would buy a firefighting game. Just ask Sega.